Friday, December 31, 2010

For starters, thank you all so much for your response to my last post...I appreciate the encouragement!

That is what a sweet friend asked me early in December. She wanted me to take her family Christmas card photo. A totally flattering request seeing as I am not a professional photographer and fairly new to the dslr world.

I told her that I would love to but I could not promise anything. She swore up and down that she just needed a picture and that anything would do. So, we settled on a time and location.

On the morning we scheduled it was so cold outside. Seriously, I think it was in the low 40's with a bitter wind. Yuck. I knew I wanted to work quickly since it was cold and there were two little ones involved so I packed my m&m's (to bribe the toddler) and got to the location early to scope out a few spots for pictures.

I played with my camera and made sure the settings worked with the lighting. Everything appeared to be going smoothly except for the fact that I was very underdressed and mighty cold. I said a little prayer before they arrived that I would get one good shot. That is all they needed for a card. One decent shot.

Well, the kids did amazing, we worked very quickly and by the grace of God, I got several great shots of this precious family. Check them out.

Not bad, eh? I still have a lot to learn and a lot of improving to do, but it sure is easy to get decent photos when you have a cute family to work with. (Good editing software helps too).

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Hello there. Glad to be back. I bet you were wondering if I was ever coming back. I hope your holidays were just wonderful. You can read about how we spent our holidays here.

I have been thinking about this for a while and just need to put it out there, so if you are interested in reading it then please bear with me. I do tend to ramble.

Let me start by saying that I tend to compartmentalize things. Simplified, my life is separating whites and colors. Girl things and boy things. Dishes on one shelf, glasses on another. You know. The same goes for my personal life. College friends and church friends. Couple friends and playgroup friends. Family blog and "work" blog. You get the point.

I started this blog with the intention of following a big passion of mine that also happens to be a big part of our families income- sewing. It is new(er) to me and I have filled thousands of hours of free time creating things for precious little ones. There is so much fun information and inspiration to share with other sewers so I decided to document it on this blog. That idea easily turned into following crafts in general and not just sewing. I was still okay with that because quite frankly, sewing and crafting go hand in hand. I figured it still applied to my readers and therefore made sense.

The problem is this. I am passionate about a bunch of stuff. As compartmental as many things are in my life my passions are truly all over the place. Maybe it is because I have two little ones and everything feels chaotic, but I can be pretty scatterbrained these days (hence this rambling post). I do love sewing and crafting, but I also love photography. I like to cook when I find an easy recipe that fits our schedule. I like to talk about my kids and what is going on with them. I also really need a place to just vent sometimes.

Since I like things neat and in their own place, I want to keep my family blog about family. Specifically it is an online scrapbook of my kids. I really don't want to keep up with 20 blogs, so what I am proposing is this....Can I use this Noodles & Milk blog as my catch all for everything else? Can this space act as my place for all the random things that I love? Will you still read it if it is?

I want to write about kids idiosyncrasies, what I am learning about photographing, inspiring sewing, mom frustrations, great recipes I come across and of course the occasional giveaways and featured shops (because I do love promoting other crafty businesses and moms).

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

The blog is going to be super light this week. Not only is it Christmas and we have lots of family coming in town, but the baby and I are sick...it is just wonderful. I was already sleep deprived, now I am like a walking zombie. All I want Santa to bring me is a good night sleep!

Anyways, I hope you will take this greeting to heart and have a very Merry Christmas.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Okay, well this is what happens when you enter a giveaway and leave me no way to contact you...Unfortunately, I still have not heard from the original winner of these outfits, so I have drawn a NEW winner! The new winner of thes precious outfits is

Amanda

who said...

Annabeth will be in 2T this spring! She would love it! (Or anything else you make and sell.)

Thursday, December 16, 2010

It looks like Christmas exploded at our house. It is not that we have that much stuff out, it is just that it is in a little space. You see we used to be in a larger house and then we down sized so I could stay home with our children. Now I have boxes and boxes of decorations that just don't make the cut because I physically don't have room for them all. I mean, I do I still need some counter space.

I thought I would share a few of my favorites with you.

Seriously, there is an entire box of just ornaments that did not get pulled out this year. Can you believe it? Before kids, I used to do a very elegant tree- it was all in white, silver and gold with white lights. It was truly magnificent and really really sparkly. Now that we have kids, we enjoy getting out the fun ornaments from when we were kids. I still do the white lights though. I don't do colored lights. Not even outside. I just can't. I know, I am weird.

We don't have a fireplace, so our stockings hang on an armoire. This is the beautiful armoire that sits in our living room and stores my fabric. Not kidding. Open it up and all you will find is lots and lots of fabric.

I picked these cuties up at the Target day-after-Christmas clearance last year. I think I paid $2.50 for all three. I never miss that sale.

Only part of my Willow Tree nativity made it out of the box this year. I actually have a lot more of the collection.

My favorite ornament:) My daughter made it at school last year. Kids really do change everything- I never thought I would cherish a handmade ornament as much as I do!

Here is the stinker that helped me decorate the tree. She had a blast.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Back in October, when I was preparing for this, I started thinking about what I was going to wear. I wanted something professional, but yet fun and crafty. I decided to wear a simple black sweater and go with funky accessories. I stumbled upon this simple tutorial from Blue Cricket Design and decided to give it a whirl. It was so easy! I used it to create this adorable pin!

Seriously, every time I wear it, I get tons of compliments. I decided that my super-chic grandmother would like one. So, I whipped one together for her to give her at Christmas. While I was working through her pin, I made some notes of things that I did slightly different.

For starters, I didn't have any kind of cookie cutters that would work for the template like the tutorial called for, so I made my own. You can download the template I used here.

You can really use as many different fabrics as you want. For this particular pin, I did every petal in a different fabric. To make it easier, I cut four layers of fabric at a time.

Here are all the petals laid out. I did the pink ones as the largest size, the brown as the medium size and the blue as the smallest.

Another thing I did for simplicity was to sew the button onto the small circle before hot gluing the circle over the center of the pin.

Here is the finished product. Pretty, huh?

Seriously, this tutorial is so easy. It is a great pin and would also be stellar as a bow or headband. These are so fast to make and would be great stocking stuffers. I hope you enjoy this tutorial. If you do, leave Blue Cricket a comment telling them that you do!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

You can check out the precious shop, Rae Danae here and here. Like what you see?

Tori, the owner has a special deal for you. Fan her facebook page here and leave a comment saying that you came from Noodles & Milk and you can use code "RDHoliday" to receive 10% off and free shipping! The code is valid through December 31st.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Noodles & Milk patterns have been picked up by another website. Above All Fabric now carries my patterns. You can find them here.

Above All Fabric is an awesome fabric shop owned by Melanie (who might be the sweetest person ever). Above All Fabric used to be an etsy shop that I frequented when I was doing custom work. Despite her success and huge amount of orders, she always remembered me and made a point to say "hi". Her business grew so fast that Melanie took it to her own website. You can find just about everything on the Above All Fabric site. They even carry apparel fabrics!

Melanie has a great offer for you. In honor of Noodles & Milk being launched on the website, from now until December 31st, you will get 15% off your fabric order when you purchase a Noodles & Milk pattern! How great is that? When you buy a pattern, you need fabric to go with it anyway, right? So it is a super deal for you.

You can buy this pattern :

And get fabrics from this series to go with it for 15% off.

(fandango)

Or buy this pattern:

And get some of these fabrics for 15% off.

(sanctuary)

The possibilities are endless! So, get shopping. Buy any Noodles & Milk pattern and pick out your fabric. Enter code "Noodles" at checkout to get the 15% discount. Enjoy!

Like Above All Fabric? You can follow their blog here. And fan them on facebook here.

I can't wait to give these outfits away to one of you! A little information for you- both outfits are a size 2t. They have all been sewn by me and bear the Noodles & Milk logo. All pieces are professionally finished with a serger.

In order to enter the giveaeway, please do the following (in separate comments please):

Leave me a comment telling me how much your little one will love these outfits. =1 entry